


these things unravel slowly

by thepointsdonotmatter



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, Bitterness, Jack's POV, Jealousy, M/M, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:20:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointsdonotmatter/pseuds/thepointsdonotmatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal is vaguely curious about Jack, but he's far more smitten with Will - unluckily for Jack.</p><p>Fill for this <a href="http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1375.html?thread=1050975#cmt1050975">kink meme prompt</a>: I want something that starts before Hannibal meets Will for the first time. After Hannibal invites Jack over for dinner, they end up having sex, maybe Hannibal fucks Jack on the table or something. It means something to Jack but it pretty much meant nothing to Hannibal. Fast-forward to Hannibal meeting Will for the first time and it being extremely obvious how, not only is he physically attracted to Will, but he's also fascinated by him and starts to openly 'court' him in front of Jack. Basically, I want something bitter and angst-ridden with Jack realizing that he was just a fuck for Hannibal and him kind of hating Will because it's obvious that Hannibal actually wants Will for more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these things unravel slowly

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this story, Bella doesn't exist.

It’s a lazy autumn morning and Jack shakes Hannibal’s hand, toes the boundary between the waiting room and the office like the cracked starting line of a race.

Jack tells him, once he’s invited inside, “I need you to help me unlock a psychopath’s mind.” He keeps his hands in the pockets of his coat, too thick to continue wearing in the decadent office, yet too cumbersome to shed and hold awkwardly in the crook of the arm. 

“That’s a tall order for our first meeting, Agent Crawford,” Hannibal replies, but the upward flicker of his lips reveals his confidence, like a latch opening. His accented voice is pitched deeper than Jack would have guessed, sleek in the way a night sky’s corners are. Jack feels sweat beginning to stain his underarms, a spark of heat riding low in his gut. 

Jack holds the words in his mouth a moment too long. “I hear you’re the best,” he finally says, like an afterthought, and Hannibal smiles again, small and quick.

He briefs Hannibal on the way to the penitentiary, then watches the sway of his coat as he enters the room with the suspect. 

Jack feels more alive than he has in months. On the other side of the mirror, Hannibal leans forward against the table and talks, steel in his gaze. 

\--

“So he didn’t do it,” Jack says that evening, brow furrowed.

“Someone got into his mind before me,” Hannibal explains, pouring him more wine. The edge of his tie brushes against Jack’s chest as he leans down, suit jacket falling open like wings of a bird; he shivers into that pinprick of contact and barely manages to snap his eyes upward again. 

Hannibal straightens, seemingly unaware of Jack’s slip. “That someone,” he continues, “methodically rearranged the furniture, walked out, and then locked the doors and threw away the key.”

“That’s very specific,” Jack says. He feels the edges of his mouth harden. “A psychopath framing _another_ psychopath?”

Hannibal inclines his head. “Two alphas competing on a battleground of bodies.”

He snorts. “A pissing match,” he amends. 

Hannibal looks at him thoughtfully. “You see the world in gritty, practical terms, don’t you?” he remarks, and there’s a glint in his eye, an abrupt, lewd skew to his face. His expression is suddenly naked, nothing but interest and desire hanging onto the frames. The silence is heavy, and Hannibal makes no move to walk back to his side of the table.

Jack swallows, puts his fork and knife down. They clatter, too loud, the sound bouncing around in his ears. He stands up, facing the good doctor, this exotic breed of man who he’s known for less than a day, and – well. He’s never had to work so little for something like this.

So he kisses Hannibal, perhaps with more passion and feeling than is appropriate. It’s awkward at first: the kiss lands off center, on the corner of his mouth, but then Hannibal shifts, hand braced against the table; Jack feels the clack of teeth and their kissing degenerates into something hard, messy. Hannibal’s shoulders are broad where he runs his hands over them. Their chests bump together. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks these sucking, wet noises don’t match, don’t fit with their expensive suits and flutes of wine. 

He opens his eyes when they break for air, suddenly aware that there are _too many layers_ of clothing between them. He only registers for a moment that Hannibal’s eyes have been open this whole time, before the other man is turning him around, one hand drifting down to deftly flick at his belt, clinically, almost. His pants fall, pool at his feet. 

Hannibal fucks him against the table, firmly but not roughly. The calloused hands gripping his hips are like iron clamps, unyielding; breaths ghost against the back of Jack’s neck with each thrust, dragging forth spikes of pleasure, white-hot and feverish. He’s panting, groans embarrassingly loud into the space in front of him. Jack strokes himself in time to the thrusts, and when Hannibal comes with a soft grunt, he finds his release soon after.

Jack wants to cranes his head back, but he’s too sated: as a result, he misses Hannibal’s eerily blank expression, the perfunctory way he zips up pants, buckles his belt. Instead, he pillows his head in his arms and rides out the pounding of his heart. Then he blindly reaches an arm back, grabbing Hannibal’s hip to pivot himself around. 

“I’m glad we did this,” he says, words trailing into a breathy laugh. He tips forward and kisses him, softer this time, and Hannibal kisses him back, but only just, keeping his arms at his side. 

“I’m sorry if I made you overexert yourself,” Hannibal says slyly. He’s absently adjusting a cuff link, looking immaculate still, except for a few strands of hair knocked loose from where they were gelled back. “You have a killer to catch, after all.”

“I catch killers all the time,” Jack tells him. “Don’t get to do _this_ all the time.”

The doctor’s smile is too knowing, if someone were to look closely at it.

\--

Hannibal consults on two more cases, ferociously intelligent in his polite way, though enigma still billows out from his footsteps. Jack doesn’t push, but nonetheless comes to expect, even welcome the jolt of his nerves and the heat pooling in his groin whenever he sees him. The mystery of their next steps together. He likes how he holds a place in Hannibal’s private life, his own shard of groans and kisses. 

His eyes linger on Hannibal too often, too long, but they’re both busy: Hannibal spends most his time with Alana, discussing motives and state of minds, or coolly talking with patients in his office. He leaves the field work to him and his crew. 

In between everything, Jack learns to function with a ribbon of lust jammed in his thoughts. 

And then dead college girls crawl their way to his morgue. Too many of them. 

It’s another lazy autumn morning. Will Graham stands behind his podium and spins poetry about murder cases to fresh faces. 

Jack thinks it’s cute, nothing more than that. 

\--

He walks into Abigail Hobbs’ hospital room and sees Hannibal and Will, asleep at their respective perches by the bed. He doesn’t think much of it. 

He’s happy, too happy, when Hannibal begins to accompany them to the crime scenes. He keeps his distance, observing politely: eventually Jack tires of it and drags him up to the front line. Hannibal asks questions then, avidly, about their procedures. 

“This is very educational,” he says, and Jack chuckles. 

\--

Price and Zeller crack a joke, one day. Jack follows the direction of their crude smiles and sees Hannibal and Will, standing side by side. 

Jack sees Will talking, the heavy weight of his words staggering out of his mouth, gloved hands occasionally flitting about. Jack sees the sharp outline of Hannibal’s jaw where he faces Will, sees the way he curves his body forward into the other man’s space, scarf dangling out. It’s not subtle. Will doesn’t seem to care. 

Déjà vu. Jack shifts uneasily, thinks of Hannibal leaning into him, tie swinging. The sun is hot against his brow.

He doesn’t notice Beverly next to him until she says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Will so relaxed before. And he’s not even around his dogs.” She sounds approving, almost motherly, the protective friend he knows her to be. 

Suddenly, the idea of being Will’s friend sickens him. Like a spasm, it comes and goes, and then he feels guilty. 

\--

The first time Will laughs when they’re at the crime scene, Zeller’s mouth actually drops open; Price snaps a picture of him.

Jack scowls at them, but it feels forced.

He hones in on Hannibal’s hand, pressed to the small of Will’s back. He’s talking into his ear, and Will is turned slightly toward him, their mouths hovering close to each other. 

\--

Chilton is all false smiles and sarcastic drawls in an ostentatious suit. Jack doesn’t miss the way he reroutes the conversation into stories and jokes only psychiatrists would know, or how he adds his own commentary on the food with, in his misguided opinion, an artistic flair. Hannibal refills their wine glasses and serves them his perfect dishes, courteous to a fault, but his eyes flicker to Jack more than once.

Jack hates how each brief moment of eye contact _appeases_ him. He doesn’t like feeling so helpless, so he lets a flash of annoyance run across his expression: something he _can_ control.

Chilton notices. “Is Will Graham making you exceed your quota of grey hairs?” he smirks. Turns to his colleague – “I asked that boy to submit to some tests, but he wouldn’t have any of it. He was very blunt. We couldn’t have talked more than ten minutes. I can’t imagine having to work with him on a daily basis.”

Hannibal smirks back, not bothering to hide it. “You’re jealous,” he says, the statement sharp like the tip of a blade, a blade he wields. 

(for a moment, Jack could have sworn Hannibal was looking at him when he said it…)

Chilton snorts, taking an enormous bite of the pork. “Of course. What kind of psychiatrist would I be if I weren’t?”

“Pure empathy,” Hannibal muses. “It’s beautiful.”

“I’ll toast to that.”

Later, Jack realizes that was the first time he heard him voice his opinion of Will.

 _Beautiful_ , he had said.

\--

He can’t stop thinking about it. He wonders if he tells it to Will during their sessions. Will stands in the morgue rattling off theories and Jack wonders if Hannibal had just taken him out for lunch, called his mind _beautiful_. Or did he say it once, here, in this very room?

He wonders if he confesses it during sex. 

The question of how long they’ve been fucking behind everyone’s back rolls onto the tip of his tongue sometimes, unbidden, and it takes everything he has to squash it back down. It leaves him biting his lip so hard blood wells up, and then Will sees and looks apologetic and tells him they’ll catch the killer soon: Jack wants to yell. Scream. 

He can’t. He needs Will to save lives, and he needs Hannibal.

He’ll catch a glimpse of Hannibal’s face passing by the doorway, and all his thoughts will scatter for one airless second, stomach roiling with emotion. It physically hurts. Each of Hannibal’s smiles are small stab wounds he can’t live without. 

He’s slowly bleeding to death.

\--

Jack looks at Will and sees a man who is barely put together. Dog hair covers his pants. He only seems to own two jackets at most. He’s sloppy. Can’t even be bothered to shave. He sweats and shakes his way through explanations of a murderer’s mind and pretends he’s performing Shakespeare.

He is able to deflect his resentment most of the time, snapping at Zeller or someone else. But not all the time. It seeps under his skin like a bad dream, like a suit he can't take off without hacking away at his organs.

Jack punches the wall a few (several) times and thinks about the bottle of JD tucked away in his kitchen. That night he ends up jerking off in his bed, well on his way to a hangover. Half-formed images of Hannibal’s disappointed, bored face keep resurfacing beneath his eyelids, and when he finally makes himself come it’s more painful than anything else. 

He’s late to the scene the next morning. A man was skewered in his home, lying face down in his own blood and piss and vomit. Hannibal’s wearing leather gloves and a long, fitted coat: he skates his fingers across the piano in the other room, ghosting out a tune, and stares at Jack from across the yellow tape as if he knows what he did last night. 

Jack would rather look at the dead man than return that oddly calculating gaze.

\--

The door to Hannibal’s office is ajar. Noises inside tumble out like streaks of rain, nailing him in place, and he _knows_ he should turn around and leave. He should. This is wrong, a blatant invasion of privacy.

But he doesn’t. He’s already half hard by the time he slots his eyes up against the opening. 

There is nothing surprising or complicated about what he sees. It’s two people having sex, nothing more than that. Will is pressed back against the ladder, and Hannibal is on his knees in front of him. 

Except this isn’t the first time they’ve had sex: not in the way Will’s hands grip Hannibal’s hair, sometimes sliding down to cup his jaw, a thumb caressing his cheek. Not in the way Hannibal’s eyes are closed, the obscene way he takes nearly all of Will into his mouth. Not in the way Will moans and rocks his hips forward, thrust and relax, over and over, the cords standing out in his neck; or in the way he cries out at his release, and how Hannibal swallows every drop before pulling away. 

The doctor is breathing heavily, lips wet and parted. Will sinks down to knees and gently lifts Hannibal’s head up with a hand on his chin; he smiles, a small private thing, and kisses him, a passionate kiss. Hannibal returns it, furiously, and lets Will push him back onto the carpeted floor. Will braces himself above him, arms on either side of his head. The outline of Hannibal’s cock is obvious against his slacks, hard and thick. 

Hannibal’s legs twitch, expectant; Will breaks the kiss and reaches down to hastily unbutton his pants and pull him out. Then he watches Hannibal’s face as he strokes him, watches the arch of his back, the groans spilling from his mouth, his hair falling into his eyes, damp with sweat. 

Afterward, they lie there for some minutes, tangled together. Pants half on, half off. Lazy, like two boys lounging on the grass where they’d snuck out the back entrance of the school. Hannibal mouths at Will’s neck, fingers running along his spine like an ivory instrument, and Will sighs, content.

Jack’s knuckles have bite marks in them where he bit down to muffle his groan. His boxers are sticky and wet. It feels revolting, but it’s nothing compared to the nausea settling in his mouth like iron nails, the wetness in his eyes.

Their hour is almost up. He slinks away before Hannibal can show Will to the door.

\--

The office is wrecked. Hannibal sits at his desk, slumped, face bloodied. He looks up when they come in, but his eyes are distant, a boat gliding without a compass. They slide over Jack, like oil on water, come to rest on Will. 

“I was worried you were dead,” Hannibal says, simply, as if he wasn’t the one who had a brush with death.

Jack’s still worked up, adrenaline not quite faded away yet. He wants to wrap his arms around Hannibal. Bury himself in the man's cologne. Catalogue each bruise and injury. But Will makes it to his desk before he does, the mass of his back shutting anyone else out. 

Really, they’re covert. Will only puts his hand on his shoulder, yet his fingers dig in like talons. It’s so covert it’s overt.

To Jack, at least.

\--

Beverly sighs and slaps two twenties into Zeller and Price’s hands. “So you’re never going to let me live this down,” she says. It’s not a question.

“What is this,” Jack interrupts.

“Dr. Lecter’s taking a few days off from seeing patients,” she replies, too annoyed to be anything but blunt. 

He bristles at that, a cutting remark ready to leap out: _Dr. Lecter_ was nearly killed in his office. Beverly’s smart. She easily slides behind the table, an effective barrier between him and her.

“But get this,” Price interjects, looking entirely too happy to be in the same conversation, much less in a morgue, “Will’s not in today either, canceled his lectures for a few days. Called in _sick_.”

Jack wants to deflate. He doesn’t need this, not right now, not when his nerves are fraying in too many directions and his heart feels like shriveling up. He runs a hand across his eyes, and his hand does not shake by sheer force of will. 

“Really?” he says, finally. “A _betting pool_?” Because anything’s better than acknowledging this, this _thing_ between Hannibal and Will that clearly extends beyond a single fuck in the office.

“Uh. Well,” Price says, “we actually would have invited you to join but – ow! Did you just smack me with the _dead guy’s_ hand?”

Zeller looks vaguely pleased with himself.

\--

It takes about a day for the reasonable, professional part of Jack to tap out. He mourns its defeat as he pulls up at Hannibal’s house, salutes its passing. 

There are two cars in the driveway already.

To his credit, Hannibal doesn’t react much when he opens the door: a slight widening of his eyes, a tic in his cheek. “Come in,” he says, and really, Jack had expected to be (politely) shooed away. 

Jack follows him into the kitchen. Hannibal’s still limping a little, an uneven staccato tread on the wood floors. 

“You’ve been distracted recently, the worst thing for someone with your kind of job,” he tells him, subtly leaning back against the counter. “Is it the Chesapeake Ripper?”

Jack watches the coffee slowly boil, shakes his head. “No. Well, I mean, of course I want to catch him, but.”

“There’s something else on your mind,” Hannibal finishes. The silver morning light hits his hair, bathing it at an impossible angle. The creases in his shirt beg to have fingers running through them. Strange, how easily Hannibal makes everything seem so contained and elegant. 

Maybe this, too, can be elegant. Jack says, “Yes,” and then he walks forward and kisses him.

It happens very quickly. It's inelegant. Hannibal stiffens and turns his head to the side, abruptly breaking the kiss. He's not so rude as to push him away: Jack staggers back himself, the sobering reality of it hitting him like a blow. 

“Jack,” Hannibal says, soft but firm: a warning. He’s standing very still, a wariness written in his limbs.

There are footsteps approaching; they skitter to a halt.

“Oh. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt—“ 

Jack only sees a sliver of Will's silhouette, and then he’s gone. Footsteps fading in the direction of the bedroom.

But it was all he needed to recognize the pity drawn across his face.

“Let me fix you a drink,” Hannibal finally says, into the awkward silence. His face is still turned, shrouded in the shadows, unreadable.

Jack doesn’t – can’t answer that. He wants to throw up all his guts, paint the floor. Ridiculously, he thinks an overture this drawn out, this emotional, this personal, shouldn't end so quietly or quickly for him. But it will. 

He leaves, and no one stops him. His footsteps crush into the pavement, the sound ballooning around him, too much, too loud, and it’s not until he’s behind the wheel that he realizes it was the pounding of his heart.

\--

Hannibal watches the layman drive away through the blinds. 

He hasn’t been this amused in a long time.


End file.
